Frank and Fred Demon Slayers
by bambers2
Summary: He just wanted to write a story, I just wanted to remember who I was, and together we nearly drove each other to the brink of insanity.
1. Chapter 1

So, as I'm battling the world of being a single parent of 4 kids while my hubby's out of town for God only knows how long, I just had to write a bit of the funny or I'll lose whatever's left of my sanity. Hopefully this will make others laugh as well or maybe I've already lost touch with reality.

_Chapter One_

There's just something about waking up not knowing where you are that'll set your head to spinning right off the bat, or maybe it was already doing that to begin with, but either way it's never a good feeling. Eyes cracked opened. Eyes pressed firmly shut. Yep, definitely spinning without the need of not knowing where I am.

_Hangover? _

It's a possibility. My stomach certainly feels like it went about ten rounds with two bottles of Jack. From the pounding headache and blurred vision, I'd say good ol' Jack kicked my ass, but the slight metallic taste in my mouth had nothing to do with alcohol. Maybe Jack had friends of the beefy, slam their fist in your face variety? That would definitely explain the face mashed up in a blender feeling.

A quick probe of my forehead. Bandaged. Nothing important leaking out, always a good thing. Damn, Jack's friends must've had a baseball bat or else my head is a lot fatter than I remembered.

So, quick assessment. Right eye – swollen shut, phew . . . that means it's not gonna fall out on me. Left eye – yeah, not feeling so hot at the moment. Cheekbones – still seem to be in the right place. Will have to double check when I can see straight again. Not sure lips should ever be this swollen – damn, I'm like a walking, not so much talking, plastic surgery experiment gone horribly wrong.

Sense of smell still working just fine – Shit, did I really puke all over myself? Umm . . . the answer to that would be a resounding yes.

Okay, since my left eye is now open, and hasn't splattered to the floor yet, I might as well risk a look around at my surroundings. Definitely not cheery, of course lights might make all the difference in the world. Good to know that whomever owns this place has a stockpile of candles however. Huh, thick blankets covering all the windows. Always great to have tons of candles burning with so many flammable objects readily at hand.

A strange tap-tap-tapping noise filtered through the mushy fog that I called my brain, and lifting my head off the pillow it was resting on, I searched for the source of the sound. Across the room, a young man in his mid-twenties, dressed in pajamas and a thick bathrobe and slippers, sat at what looked like a folding card table typing away on an old fashioned typewriter. He stopped the moment he realized I was staring at him, and glanced up at me and a lazy grin spread across his features.

"Ah, you're finally awake." He smiled politely, then crinkled his nose as he gestured toward a door off to the left of himself. "The bathroom's that way . . . I didn't wanna wake you, but now that you're apparently up – well, you're kinda stinking up the place, and scented candles only help so much."

"Where am I?" I asked hoarsely, wincing at the searing pain in my throat. Okay, so maybe speaking at the moment was not such brilliant plan as I seemed to have swallowed glass somewhere between enjoying Jack's company and having my head pulverized in the name of baseball practice.

"Well, you made it very clear – no hospitals, and then you face planted it right into the pavement, so I couldn't very well leave you there to bleed to death." He waved his hands in front of himself in an excited manner as he explained. "So I brought you home with me . . . God, I hope you're not some sort of deranged serial killer . . . then again if you were, I might be able to pick your brain a little bit . . . details, you know, it's all in the details. People will spot a flaw a million miles away, and a publisher . . . ." his voice trailed off as he scratched his head, seemingly searching for the right words to describe what he wanted to say. "I'd compare them to Darth Vader – all-powerful ya know, but they're really more like the Emperor. Cause sure they play all nice as they flip you all inside out, drained your soul, and then turn you to the darkside of the force." His smile faltered, realizing I was staring slack-jawed at him. "Not a big Star Wars fan I take it?"

"Not so much," I managed in a breathy whisper.

"That's okay, the analogy still holds firm," he responded unconcernedly with another wave of his hand. "I'm Eric by the way," he paused, biting pensively at his lower lip, and a slight frown creased his brow. "How'd that sound to you? I thought I liked it but now I'm not so sure. I mean, it rolled off my tongue nicely, but I don't know if it has that certain feeling I'm looking for."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" I probably would've scrunched my eyes in confusion if they weren't already squinted closed due to bat and fist pulverization. _God, if this guy was my drinking buddy last night, it's no wonder I got my ass kicked. He's all kinds of buckets of crazy. _

"Eric – er, I'm tryin' it out . . . maybe I just need time to get used to it." His lazy grin returned as he scratched at his short, scruffy hair. "I mean, does it scream horror writer to you, say like Stephen King does . . . maybe it's all in the last name? What do you think?"

At the moment, I was thinking to myself that the name Eric now conjured up the images of a stark raving lunatic in my mind, but seeing that I had yet to use his shower, which I really needed, I thought it better to keep that to myself. "Think I could really use that shower, if you don't mind."

"Sure," he gestured toward the door once more, "sorry about that. Here I'm all ramblin' on while you smell like you've been roaming around in a sewer all night long."

I'm not sure why but when he mentioned the sewer, a faint image of a dark, dank place with pipes attached to cement walls, and a dirty river of raw sewage beneath my feet, flashed through my mind, but then it scattered amidst my furiously pounding headache. "You wouldn't happen to have any Tylenol by any chance, would you?" I asked doubtfully. Oh, I'm fairly sure he probably had plenty of other kinds of drugs, ones doctors prescribed for whatever mental illness he was suffering from, but he didn't seem the type to carry the essentials any normal person would have in their home.

"Sure, it's in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom . . . ah . . . ." He hesitated as he eyed me rather suspiciously. "Afraid I never got your name last night in all the excitement."

_Excitement?_ I'm glad to hear he found me getting my ass kicked exciting, I really wouldn't want to disappoint crazy guy, maybe he could add it to one of his stories. "It's – it's . . . ." I narrowed my already squinting eyes even more as I searched the sludgy chasm of my mind, and came up with big, fat nothingness. "I'm . . . ." I scratched the back of my head, wincing as my fingertips brushed along the ridge of a thick welt beneath the bandage.

"You don't remember?" he asked rather excitedly, probably making plans to add this to whatever horror story he was working on at present.

"I remember," I shot back angrily, rubbing my temples as the image of an old fashioned Colt revolver flitted across my mind.

"Well, if it helps, I'm usually good at picking out names that suit people, an' you look like a Larry to me . . . or maybe a George."

"It's not either of those," I uttered, rolling the sound of the names around on my tongue, and determining they didn't suit me at all.

"Well, if you don't know, how can you be sure?" And there it was again, that annoyingly lazy grin of his. It was the kind of smile that made you want to beat the crap out of him just on principle alone. And I'm pretty damn sure a Larry or George wouldn't feel the same way as me on the matter, so I knew I could cross those names off the list.

It was at this point that inspiration struck me in the form of a sharp pain that began in the middle of my back and shot its way up my spine to my brain. I had proof of who I was in my back pocket, and I would prove to him that I wasn't a Larry. Fishing through both my pockets and coming up empty, I then searched my jacket pockets as well, only to find the same results. "My wallet's missing."

"Don't look at me." His grayish-blue eyes widened considerably, shaking his head in feigned innocence. "I looked around for it last night after I str – " His voice abruptly trailed off as he lowered his head to break eye contact with me. "I checked your pockets and it wasn't there when I found you."

Eric, or whatever his real name was, was definitely lying about something – Hell, he was probably lying about everything, but since he was the only one who might have a real idea of who I was, I couldn't afford to have him kick me out of his house at the moment. "Look, if you don't like Larry, I'll call you something else, I just figured you wouldn't want to be called something unoriginal like John Doe."

The name John was completely unoriginal, yet it did strike a familiar cord, but the memory it invoked seemed more like something out of a horrible nightmare instead of reality. "It's not John," I muttered, feeling as if I'd just somehow denied an important part of my life. Yet, along with that feeling came a deep-rooted anger that I couldn't find a reason for, so I shoved it to the deepest niches of my mind.

"Well, Larry it is then, unless you want me to make you up a really cool Star Wars name . . . mine's Krier Frroc, Jedi Master."

"I'm gonna go take a shower." _Before my head explodes or I kill you, _I mentally added to myself as I stood on shaky legs and headed toward the bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks to everyone for taking the time to review, and extra cookies for those who reviewed . . . that's right, I made cookies in my hubby's absence, just don't tell him or he'll think I've turned into Betty Crocker. bambers;)_

_Chapter Two_

If I'd suspected that Eric was out of his mind before I'd gone into the bathroom and showered, it was completely confirmed by the time I'd returned to his living room. As I stood at the threshold of the room, my jaw dropped open as I watched him shuffling around on the ground as if some unseen force was knocking the hell out of him. My first thought was that he was having some sort of seizure, my second was more accurately to the point. He was one step shy of riding the crazy train, an' buckets full of nuts.

His head popped up, and snapped to the side as if an invisible fist had punched him square in the cheek, and then he glanced my way and smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I must look a bit . . . well, there's no other way to say it but crazy. It's a part of my process," he went on to explain, "I'm all about realism. If some badass demon is gonna knock the hell out of one of my characters, I want them to respond realistically."

Yellow-eyes flashed with fiery heat through my mind at the mention of demons, but I quickly pushed it aside, and retrained my focus on him. "You write about demons?" I asked, stomach churning at the thought that I was somehow placing him in danger just by being in his home.

"Yeah, it's gonna be a series if I ever get it completed." With a weary sigh, he pulled himself up off the ground, and returned to his typewriter. "At first it was going to be about these two girls traveling backwoods America, hunting vamps and werewolves, but then I thought that was a little too Buffyish. So now I'm leaning towards making it about these two guys fighting demons." As he spoke, in my head I envisioned two shadowy figures searching through the trunk of their darkly colored vehicle for weapons to fight whatever creature had crossed their path.

"Brothers?" I asked, and instantly regretted it as his eyes lit up with excitement.

"No, why? You think they should be?" He immediately reach for a pencil and pad of paper, scribbling down several things before returning his attention to me. "Why do you think these two brothers would want to hunt demons?" His eyes grew wide as his mouth dropped open. "Ohh, wait just a moment . . . maybe they have some sort of superpowers like Batman . . . no, Batman doesn't have superpowers. Maybe more like Superman, ya know. What if they could melt the demons with their minds. That'd be freakin' awesome."

Not knowing what to say that could further add to the pure random craziness of the conversation, I quickly glanced around the room, and my sights leveled on the blanketed windows. "Can I ask why you cover the windows with blankets."

"Well, it's a part of my process - I'm trying to get in touch with my darker side, my Vader side as it were."

"Of course you are." Rolling my eyes, I turned my attention to the vast sea of lit candles smoking up the room and filling it with the overpowering scent of earthy sandelwood. "And the candles are a part of the process as well I suppose?"

"No, what do you think I am - crazy?" He chuckled. "I just got so busy writing I forgot to pay the electric bill."

"The thought never crossed my mind." Nope once it was planted in my head that thought remained firmly rooted, no flittering across my mind on that account. "Why don't you have any mirrors in your house?" I asked to change the subject, almost dreading the answer, but too curious not to ask after failing to find one in the bathroom. "How am I supposed to remember who I am if I can't see myself?"

"Good question," he said, eying me up for a moment before he scribbled something else down on his notepad. "Have you ever heard that mirrors can trap the souls of the dead?"

Searching my mind for a moment, I realized that I had. Pressing my eyes closed, images flashed through my mind of mirrors shattering, and dark altars with symbols painted in blood on reflective glass, but just as I focused in on them, those damn yellow eyes burned through the memories, scattering them like dust caught in a violent fiery hell storm. "I've heard of it before."

"Well, I've toyed with the idea of these souls being able to travel through mirrors like the urban legend of Bloody Mary, an' I don't wanna wake up findin' myself dead some morning, so I got rid of them."

"Eric, have you ever thought of seeking professional help?" The words slipped from my mouth before I had a chance to stop them, but he had to know he was in need of serious mental help.

"You think that might help?" He quirked a brow as if pondering my suggestion, and perhaps finding some merit in it. "I mean, I've heard of writer's groups, but those people are usually all kinds of crazy, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean." Slumping back down onto the couch, I rubbed my throbbing temples.

"So, Larry, these brothers . . . Frank and Fred Lancaster, what would their motivation be?" he probed, undaunted by my comment or the look of aggravation I cast in his direction. "They have to have a reason why they slay demons for a living."

_Frank and Fred?_ I shook my head in further agitation, but wasn't the least bit surprised that he would choose those names. "I'm no writer, I've no freakin' idea what their motivation would be for hunting some sonuvabitchin' thing," I gritted out with more force than was necessary, and was somewhat shocked by the intense burning rage conjured in my mind at the thought of demons.

Eric bit at his lower lip as he drummed his pencil against the tabletop, probably another part of his so-called process, adding to the already pulsating thrum inside my head. "Do you really have to do that?" I motioned toward the pencil, and gave him a look that clearly meant that if he didn't stop, I would rip the damn thing out of his hand and snap it into pieces, and maybe break a few of his fingers in my so-called process.

"Sorry," he mumbled absentmindedly, "was just thinkin' how you'd make a good character in my story. Maybe there's this guy that the brothers go to for all the intel? Someone they trust, ya know . . . sort of like their own personal Obi Wan."

_Just great, we're back to Star Wars references._ Heaving a tired sigh, I carefully rubbed my eyes, wincing with the effort, and quickly decided not to do it again until the swelling had gone away. "How'd you find me anyway?" I asked, hoping to change the subject, and maybe figure out who I was before I became just as mentally unstable as him. "Maybe if you took me back there, I might remember something."

"Ummm . . . yeah, about that," he hesitated, setting aside his pencil and paper, and almost appeared as if he were getting ready to bolt for the front door. "I don't really think it'll be all that much help."

"Why not." Instinctively my fists clenched as I fixed him with what normally would've been a hard stare, but probably turned out looking more comical looking than menacing.

"Because I . . . I hit you with my car." Holding up his arms, he waved them in front of himself as if maybe I'd somehow misunderstood him, and he needed to clarify. "It wasn't my fault, you just popped up out of nowhere . . . almost like a Jack-in-the-box. Only in this case it was a Larry-in-the-manhole, and my car sorta slammed into the manhole cover, flattening you. I was only going about five miles an hour when I hit you, an' you can see where this is more your fault than mine, right?"

My jaw dropped wide open as I continued to stare at him incredulously. He'd struck me with his car and actually had the nerve to say I was to blame. "What would I being doing in an underground sewage tunnel?"

"I dunno." Splaying his arms out to the sides, he shrugged. "But I was thinkin' if you didn't mind, I could somehow work it into my story. Maybe some sort of creature chasing the brothers through the sewer system."

The image of a creature shredding it's own flesh, backbone contorting hideously as its veiny under skin was revealed, flashed like a snapshot in my mind. "What would a creature be doing hiding out in the sewers?"

"Maybe it's a smart creature, and knows the sewer systems run underground throughout the entire city." He smiled, seemingly happy with his own explanation, and hastily picked up his pencil to jot it down. "And if that's the case, maybe it's hiding out there waiting to find its next victim."

"Right, because so many people tend to wander around in sewers."

"Well, you apparently do, so there has to be others." His eyes widened yet again, and without saying a word he hurriedly scrawled something more down. I cleared my throat to gain his wayward attention, but without glancing in my direction he held up one finger for me to hold my thoughts until he was finished writing. Throwing down his pencil, he glanced up at me and excitedly babbled, "What if the brothers aren't the only slayers out there? What if there's this whole underground network of them? That'd be really cool wouldn't it? Sort of like the Rebellion going up against the Empire, but in this case it's the slayers versus the demons."

"Why slayers?" I asked, mentally kicking myself for being drawn into his madness, but figured if he could work through his thoughts on his story, he might be of some help to me. "Why not just call them hunters? That way they can just say their going on hunting trips if anyone gets to questioning all the weapons in their vehicle."

"Huh. Never thought of it like that." Scratching his scruffy beard for a moment in thought, he bobbed his head up and down enthusiastically. "I like it, Frank and Fred - Demon Hunters."

"Are you really married to those two names?" I questioned, now drawn into his whole writing process. "Cause I sure as hell wouldn't want a Fred or Frank saving my ass from some damn demon. And at this moment, I'm kinda rooting for the demon to kick their asses."

"You really don't know anything about writing do you?" he said with a shake of his head, irritation peppering his tone. "Frank and Fred are awesome names, they just scream of the feeling of guys you can trust. They're your buddies - the guys you want to have around. Hell, I'd wanna have those two guys saving my life if I was in danger."

"Friends of your by any chance, an' I'm just guessin' here, but you've probably promised they would be written into a story?" I'd now completely fallen into his insanity, and was rambling on about a story I couldn't give two shits about. "Can you just show me where you flattened me with your car?"

"You mean go outside?" He appeared taken aback, eyes rounding at the thought of leaving his perch to venture out of his home. "Out of the house, outside?"

"Well, yeah, unless you're telling me now that you somehow managed to run me over while sitting in your chair typing."

"But what if inspiration strikes me while I'm out there? I'm on a roll here, an' not like you care, but sometimes these things just come an' go . . . an' once they're gone, it's just never the same."

"You remember when you asked what a good motive would be for your brothers?"

"Yeah."

"I'm thinkin' revenge would be a damn good motive, and I believe I really am the type of guy who would take it personally if you didn't get your ass dressed right now an' take me to where you hit me with your car."

"Guess I could always take my voice recorder," he muttered dejectedly, eying his typewriter as if asking it for its permission to leave. Tapping his fingers nervously on his desk, he added, "Ever heard of EVP's before, Larry?"

One moment of sanity and we were straight back to the funny farm. Yet for some reason his words conjured up the image of a homemade contraption with flashing lights across the top of a voice recorder.

"I don't know, maybe." Scrubbing a hand across several days worth of facial hair, I wondered in aggravation if I normally had a beard or hadn't had a chance to shave in a while. "It's for recording the voices of spirits, right?"

"Exactly." He punched at the air in his excitement, face alighting with a huge grin. "Well, I was thinking that maybe if I took you where you wanted to go, then you'd owe me, so maybe we could swing by a cemetery an' do a little EVP work."

"Just let me get this clear, you hit me with your car, and now I owe you?" I grumbled at his warped sense of logic.

"Technically you hit my car, so yeah, you do kinda owe me."

Pressing my eyes closed, I rubbed at my aching temples, certain that my headache was more Eric induced than from having my head bashed against the pavement. "I'll go with you if you change the names of your characters because Frank and Fred would never make it past the first book."

Eric pushed back his chair, rose to stand and headed toward a room off to the right, calling back over his shoulder, "You sure you're not a writer, cause for someone who claims he isn't, you certainly have a lot of opinions on the matter."


End file.
